Day of the Dead: A Frieda Klein Novel (8)

by Nicci French

  She looked around at the plush office buildings of Chelsea Harbour. This didn’t feel like Dean Reeve’s territory. He belonged further east, to the London of Poplar and the River Lea and the Isle of Dogs. She might have expected somewhere more remote, more secluded, darker. But it was bright, sunlit. It wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t isolated either. As she leaned over the railings, looking into the creek – now swollen with the high tide – she was passed by a woman pushing a buggy, by a man in a suit talking loudly on his phone, by two men in hard hats and visibility vests. It didn’t matter. She had nowhere else to go.

  She turned her back to the creek and faced the road. On the far side, a dark blue van was parked, half up on the pavement. A young man, tall, short-haired, track-suited, ran past her in a slow, loping stride. Frieda walked into Chelsea Harbour itself. Eighty years ago this would have been a place for unloading ships, with cranes and dockers and stevedores. Now it was all offices and restaurants and bars. If there was an anchor remaining, it was there as part of an artistic display. The boats were leisure craft. As Frieda turned left, she noted the people walking past: a young couple arm in arm, a woman in a pin-stripe suit. Frieda looked more closely at a man in a grey bomber jacket and a woollen cap. No, it wasn’t him. Even so, something felt strange. She couldn’t quite identify it but it was as if the weather were about to change, or someone in an orchestra had played a wrong note. She arrived at the final stretch of the creek, where it lost itself in the great river. So much had changed, but not that, not the endless flow to the sea and then back from it. It had contained so much, including the body of the man she had once loved.

  She turned round and started to retrace her steps. She glanced at her watch. It could be hours. Perhaps she would have to wait until dark. But she didn’t mind. As she walked back across the little bridge over the creek, she stopped to let the man in the tracksuit run past her. He looked like a serious runner. He was probably running along the embankment, then back. It was a rather uninspiring choice. Frieda pictured more interesting routes: along the embankment, across Chelsea Bridge, then along the south side through Battersea Park and back to the north over Wandsworth Bridge.

  She leaned over and stared down into the water, the slow drifts and the currents, and fell into a kind of trance. She was thinking nothing, remembering nothing. Her mind felt empty. When she turned round, she saw something she didn’t expect and it took a few seconds to process. The runner, the loping, elegant runner, wasn’t running now. He was walking towards her and he was pale and agitated. His face was glowing with sweat and he was looking directly at her. Briefly, she wondered if this could be Dean Reeve but she knew at the same time that it couldn’t possibly be. This man was taller and younger and wasn’t anything like him. But still he was getting closer. Frieda couldn’t have run away even if she wanted to and she didn’t want to. This was what she was here for. The man was in front of her now. He was glassy-eyed, panting heavily and visibly trembling.

  ‘He said a name,’ the man said, his voice shaking. ‘I don’t remember the name.’

  ‘Dean Reeve?’

  ‘No. No. He said a woman’s name.’

  ‘Frieda Klein?’

  ‘Yes. Frieda Klein.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘He said to give this to you and then I could go.’

  The man held out a piece of paper and Frieda took it. It was a page of lined paper, folded in half and roughly torn at one end. She unfolded it. There was writing on it in familiar block capitals:

  I COULDN’T MAKE IT. LOOK AROUND YOU.

  She didn’t need to. There was a sudden bustle and shouting around her. Two men were bundling the runner to the ground. Frieda felt a moment of alarm, then everything became clear to her and she felt only anger. The couple she had seen earlier were running towards her. The man was talking on his phone. The woman looked down at the man and then at Frieda.

  ‘Is it Dean Reeve?’ she said.

  ‘Of course it isn’t Dean Reeve. What the hell are you all doing here?’

  The woman took out a badge and showed it to Frieda.

  ‘I don’t need to see that. I know who you are.’

  The runner was wriggling and squealing and crying out in the grasp of the two men. The third man joined them and held him on the pavement with an arm across his throat.

  ‘Stop!’ Frieda shouted. ‘You’ll kill him.’ And when nobody paid any attention she tried to pull the last man away. She felt herself being grasped from behind and pulled back. She hit back with an elbow and there was a cry. Then she was grasped more firmly and pulled round. She was being held by two young men in suits. Another man in a rumpled suit, older than the other two, more heavily built, was facing her.

  ‘Let her go,’ he said.

  One of the younger men stepped back holding a hand to his face.

  ‘She caught me on the nose,’ he said. ‘It’s bleeding!’ He glared at Frieda.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ said the older man, and moved to the human tangle on the ground that was now still. He bent down to the runner, who was under full restraint. ‘We need to ask you some questions. Can we let you go?’

  ‘Of course you can let him go,’ said Frieda sharply.

  Slowly the three men relaxed their grip and raised themselves up, away from the runner, who was still sprawled on the ground. Frieda thought he might be about to cry.

  ‘Help him up,’ said the older man, in a gentler tone. He looked at Frieda. ‘What did he give you?’

  Frieda handed him the note and he read it. ‘He must have seen us,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, he must have seen you.’

  ‘I know who you are,’ he said. ‘Give me a minute.’ Then he turned back to the runner. ‘I’m Chief Inspector Dugdale. I need to ask you some questions. What’s your name?’

  ‘Duffy,’ said the man. ‘Paul Duffy. I was just going for a run.’

  ‘Who gave you this?’ The runner shook his head. ‘Come on, mate, you’ve got to tell us.’

  Duffy looked at the people around him and then, with an expression of puzzlement, at Frieda.

  ‘He took my phone,’ Duffy said. ‘He made me unlock it and he examined it. He said he knew my name and he knew where I lived and he knew I had children.’ He started to cry.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Dugdale. ‘You’re safe now.’

  ‘I’m not saying anything. I haven’t said anything.’

  ‘You’re safe,’ repeated Dugdale.

  He motioned Frieda away from the group. ‘You need to tell me about this, Dr Klein.’

  ‘What is there to tell? You ruined everything.’

  ‘I was thinking more about you making a statement.’

  ‘That was my statement. Here’s another one: look around you. That’s what the note says. You found nothing, you achieved nothing.’ She was silent for a few moments, her face sombre. ‘I thought this would be the end. It could have been.’

  ‘You need to explain yourself.’

  ‘Do I?’ On her face was an expression that Dugdale found hard to read.

  ‘Come to the police station and tell us everything,’ said Dugdale, in a kinder tone.

  She looked away, and when she spoke, it wasn’t to him. ‘I just don’t know what’s going to happen now.’

  ‘What’s going to happen is that we will do our job and we will catch him. And you can leave that to us.’

  ‘I don’t want to stop you doing your job,’ said Frieda. ‘I’ll leave now.’

  ‘You can’t just go.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because to do my job properly, there are things you need to tell me. Urgently. If we have just interrupted a meeting between you and Dean Reeve, you are duty-bound to give us all the help you possibly can to find him, track him down.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I will. But not now, not here. It’s dangerous, don’t you see?’

  ‘You’re safer if you cooperate with us. We can protect you.’

  She made an impatie
nt movement with her head. ‘No, you can’t. I’ll come to you soon.’

  ‘Tell me your phone number, at least.’

  ‘I’ll contact you.’

  Dugdale looked at her with a fixed expression. Then he took his wallet out and removed a card and handed it to Frieda, who put it into her pocket and then remembered something.

  ‘If you talk to Malcolm Karlsson, tell him you saw me. Tell him I’m all right.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell him yourself?’

  ‘If you see him.’

  She took a complicated way back, jumping on a bus, taking the Underground and changing trains several times before taking another bus. It was more than an hour after leaving Counter’s Creek when she let herself into the flat. Lola ran towards her and, before Frieda could do anything, threw her arms around her.

  ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

  Frieda extricated herself and pushed Lola away from her.

  ‘What?’ said Lola.

  ‘It was you,’ said Frieda, slowly.

  Lola stepped further back, as if she needed to get out of range. ‘I had to,’ she said. ‘I just couldn’t let you go and die like that.’ Frieda didn’t reply. ‘You want me to say sorry. Well, I’m not sorry. I did what I did and I don’t regret it.’

  ‘Regret?’ said Frieda. ‘I can promise you that one day you’ll want to get in a time machine, come back and stop yourself doing what you did today.’

  It took Josef and Stefan and Chloë and Jack and two friends of Stefan’s to get the steel beams out of the van and up the stairs of Frieda’s house. While heaving the second up the stairs, one of Stefan’s friends backed against a wall, dislodged a mirror that fell onto the floor and shattered. Everyone looked at it in dismay.

  ‘So sorry,’ Josef said.

  ‘No,’ said Chloë. ‘Frieda once said to me, “Don’t have anything you would mind losing and breaking.” ’

  ‘But it’s a mirror,’ said Jack. ‘Seven years of bad luck.’

  ‘Frieda’s already had her seven years of bad luck,’ said Chloë.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  At first Reuben thought it was one of the homeless people from the hostel up the road. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d taken shelter under the porch of the Warehouse, or huddled there to sleep. But as he got closer, he saw that the figure was lying at an unnatural angle, and then he saw a canvas backpack by his side that he recognized. And he recognized the light-brown hair tied back in a ponytail and the black boots.

  He started to run towards it, and at the same time he was pulling his mobile out of his pocket, fumbling it open. He fell to his knees beside the body, and while he was calling the emergency services he tried to find a pulse, but he knew that Jonah Martin was dead. As Reuben started pumping at his young colleague’s chest, he heard a faint, tinny sound and realized that Jonah was wearing headphones and music was still playing.

  ‘Come back, Jonah,’ he said, but Jonah’s blue eyes stared past him, up at the sky.

  He heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Paz staring at them, frozen in shock.

  ‘It’s Jonah,’ he said unnecessarily, and Paz knelt beside him, her dark hair falling like a shawl over the dead man’s body.

  ‘Jonah Martin had just started work at the Warehouse Clinic,’ said Dugdale to his assembled team several hours later. His face seemed pouchier than ever. His shirt had come untucked. He looked at the men and women who had squeezed into the large meeting room, saw their bright eyes, their expressions of barely concealed excitement. They were loving this, he realized: it was the biggest case they would ever have. But he wasn’t loving it. Four murders, the name of the man they were hunting – and yet he felt as far from catching him as ever. ‘He was thirty-one years old and lived with his girlfriend, who is expecting their first child. He was strangled, probably as he was opening the door to the clinic. The key was under his body. He had probably been dead for under an hour when Dr McGill found him. We’re awaiting the preliminary reports.’

  He took a mouthful of water from the glass in front of him, then continued, ‘Nothing seems to have been stolen. His iPod was still on him – in fact it was still playing. His wallet was in his backpack, holding seventy pounds and several credit cards. It’s early days, but he seems to have had a great many friends and no obvious enemies. Dr McGill spoke very highly of him.’

  ‘Do you think –’ began a young man at the back, then stopped.

  ‘You were about to ask if this murder is connected to the other high-profile cases on our patch,’ said Dugdale. ‘At first glance, there seems to be nothing to tie them together. They were planned in advance and staged with a careful deliberation. Jonah Martin died where he was found. That’s at first glance.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked Quarry.

  ‘As you know, last night – what’s the kind way of putting this? – we attempted to intercept a meeting between Frieda Klein and Dean Reeve. At any rate, we botched it. Dean Reeve never appeared, but he was there. This morning, a psychoanalyst was murdered on the doorstep of the clinic that Dr Klein is closely connected to.’

  ‘So you’re saying Dean Reeve murdered Jonah Martin.’

  ‘That’s my working hypothesis and I’d be very surprised – though happy – to discover it wasn’t true. It’s a message.’

  ‘What’s he saying to us?’

  ‘To us? Nothing. The question is, what’s he saying to Frieda Klein? And the answer is, fuck knows. Nothing good.’

  The door opened and an officer came in and whispered something in Dugdale’s ear. He stood up. ‘Maybe she’s about to tell me, though,’ he said. ‘Quarry, brief everyone.’ He looked around the men and women in the room; some of them seemed like schoolchildren to him. ‘One more thing: this is a national story now. An international story. A media frenzy. Everyone will be watching. Everyone will be an expert. For God’s sake, keep your bloody mouths shut.’

  ‘Please take a seat,’ he said to Frieda. He was afraid she might suddenly disappear, as she had done the previous day, melting back into the greyness.

  She shook her head and remained standing. He had seen many photos of Frieda Klein, when her hair was long and dark, and he had always found something about the directness of her gaze unsettling, even when she was looking into a camera. Now her eyes glowed in her pale face as if there was a flame inside her.

  She took a step towards him. ‘Jonah Martin,’ she said.

  ‘Had you met him?’

  ‘Never. He was my replacement.’

  ‘At the Warehouse?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean,’ said Dugdale, ‘standing in for you once the meeting yesterday did not take place.’

  ‘Yes. He is my substitute.’

  ‘Are you saying that Reeve was going to kill you – that you were going there yesterday to be killed?’

  Frieda gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘That’s not the point. The point is that, at the moment, Dean Reeve is in control. He is calling the shots. He killed Geoffrey Kernan. He killed Lee Samuels. He killed Gerald Hebb.’

  ‘I’ve never even heard of Gerald Hebb.’

  ‘He killed Liz Barron. And now he has killed Jonah Martin. And he’s not going to stop.’

  ‘You don’t have much faith in the police.’

  ‘You know my history. Are you surprised?’

  ‘He’s not a genius.’

  ‘He doesn’t need to be. He’s obsessed. He has a single fixed purpose.’

  Frieda took a large envelope from her bag and handed it across to Dugdale. ‘I’ve written everything down,’ she said. ‘As clearly as I could. I believe that there is a pattern in what Dean Reeve is doing. I won’t go through it now in detail, because it’s in this letter, but you will see that he is placing victims on the sites of secret rivers.’

  Dugdale blinked. ‘That sounds far-fetched.’

  ‘Nevertheless it’s what he’s doing. What’s more, the reaso
n he’s killing them and then waiting before he displays them is connected with their names. You’ll see when you read my explanations. It doesn’t apply to Liz Barron and it doesn’t apply to Jonah. Those were … particular messages. And, please, this is important.’ She took a step forwards, fixing her gaze on him. ‘I feel sure that you need to look at the first death.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘What do you mean “look at the first death”?’ said Dugdale. ‘What do you think we’ve been doing? We’ve been conducting an investigation into all the murders. That’s our job.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Frieda, impatiently. ‘What I mean is that the second and third murders were done to fit the pattern. Geoffrey Udo Kernan, Geoffrey Udo Kernan, and it’s the Udo that’s significant here. Placed at the source of the Fleet on his name day.’

  ‘Dr Klein …’ Dugdale began, but she held up one hand.

  ‘You need to believe this. That’s where it started. It’s his murder that explains the pattern of the killings. The others follow on from it. There’s more than that. There’s something territorial about this. Dean Reeve grew up around Plaistow.’

  ‘Kernan lived in Barking.’

  ‘They’re only a few minutes apart. That’s his area, it’s what he knows.’

  ‘All right,’ said Dugdale. ‘It’s his area. What follows from that? What are you suggesting?’